25 May 2007

A slight majority of Members of European Parliament (MEPs) have signed a declaration to establish a Europe-wide hydrogen-based energy economy.

Of the EP’s 785 MEPs, 420 (53.5%) signed the declaration to push for a hydrogen-based fuel economy.

Among the main goals of the declaration is to increase energy efficiency by 20%, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30%, and to produce 33% of electricity and 25% of other energy via renewable energy sources by 2020. In addition, the parliament urges all EU institutions to work toward building a “bottom up” hydrogen infrastructure by 2025, and to liberalize consumers access to choose among environmental energy supplies.

To hit these targets, the EP envisions a five-point strategy: maximizing energy efficiency, reducing gas emissions, optimizing commercial use of renewable energy, establishing hydrogen production and an infrastructure for its use through fuel cells, and creating “smart” power grids to distribute energy.

Comments

Another confirmation that people are people whatever their nationality, race, religion etc.. and that all people are basically gullible and stupid. Now the Europeans have fallen for the "bait and switch" of hydrogen.

Though it is interesting that the "main goals" listed have nothing to do with hydrogen. In fact the use of hydrogen in fuel cell cars would actually hinder the "main goals" since most hydrogen is produced using natural gas and the CO2 emissions from using that in cars with fuel cells is much worse than options such as PHEV.

they will use the hydrogen economy because its profitable,
It gives another taxable alturnative to petroleum as a road
fuel ! It does not matter to these people that it is less efficient
than pure electricity !
I recently had a test drive in the Fiat fuel cell panda and the
same model in BEV form , the fuel cell variant loses most of the
trunk to the hydrogen tank and wieghs considerably more than
the BEV therefore requiring a 50kw motor over the 30kw in the
BEV model , less efficiency ! more things to go wrong .
I would hate to think that the motor industry had anything to
do with this decision !

On another note has anyone out there heard anything new on
Cleanova , since these reputed large orders they seem to have gone
very quiet , I dont fancy their chances now that Sarko´s in the
driving seat

The hydrogen economy will eventually come because of the rapid progress they are making with regard to the price of hydrogen and the price of hydrogen fuel cells. However, after reading the report on enzymatic hydrogen generation from sugar (http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/05/researchers_dev_1.html) and the other report about a new low temperature gasification process for sugar (http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/05/shell_hydrogen_.html#more) then I am almost convinced that the future energy carrier of choice for vehicle transportation will be sugar water. It is quite obvious that it is easier to handle sugar water than compressed or liquid pure hydrogen and this is what convinces me. We just need to wait and see whether these two new pathways for generating hydrogen on demand from sugar are economically viable. The most attractive process is the enzymatic process which occurs in atmospheric pressure below 50 Celsius and with an incredibly efficiency of 50 to 55% from sugar to torque (122%, hydrogen generator; 50-55%, fuel cells; ~85%, motor). The future of transportation, I think, belongs to the plug in enzymatic sugar full cell vehicle.

I've never said that hydrogen won't work. It's just doing things the hard way. The only real hurdle now for PHEVs and BEVs is the cost of the battery, and I am more optomistic about their costs comming down than I am about all of the hydrogen hurdles being crossed before it's too late for peak and climate change.

Yes, the order of market introduction will likely be gasoline plug ins in 3-4 years, followed shortly after by flex fuel E100 ethanol plug ins, followed a while after 7 years perhaps by sugar fuel cell plug-ins. Pure electric highway vehicles will come later this year with the Think car and BEV vehicles will be mainly for small light weight and short range mini cars and sports cars because of the battery costs and the prohibitive battery weight. Furthermore, they will be marketed to people as their choice for a second or a third vehicle for the family.

Hydrogen as an energy carrier seems a bad choice, except in exotic applications. Lithium batteries would be much better.
Just go straight from the grid to batteries. Then, you can use all types of alternative power such as wind and PV. The problem with wind power is that it blows when it feels like, not when you need it, but if you have batteries to store it, the problem is solved.
So batteries, batteries, batteries are the problem to work on - light ones for cars, heavier ones for houses.The problem then occurs, what if you want to drive 500 miles - on your holiday for instance.
You either own, or rent a 2nd car running on liquid fuels. Perhaps the government could work out a scheme where you deposit your existing BEV and take out a liquid fuel vehicle.
Or just get a PHEV.

The reason for h2? Power. Try to move a volt sized car with ev... will require 108 kwh of battery packs to get the range of the fuel cell volt. It would require more yjen twice that to get the range og the genset variant.

Yet the fc volt only needs 2 small tanks and just 4 kg of h2 and a small cheap 8 kwh battery to do the job.. and the tanks weigh 40 kg each.. the batteries....

People dont want to fill up every day or every other day.

And already at going rates EVEN from electrolisys it should be about 24 bucks a tank.. right now. And h2 is getting cheaper.

As for energy costs... even at 75 75 the goal wich has ALREADY been reached even counting co,pression costs.. h2 is only a bit less then 2x the energy of ev.

With a bit more time.. 66% and thus only a small penalty comes.. and the fc runs the car even further to boot maybe 380 miles on 4 kilos...

And we dnt know the limit..

Ev likely will flurish where 1 battery pack is all you need. beyond that genset and fuel cells will reign.

Neil, I'm quite surprised that a mild-manner and open minded person could have used such strong words against the EU Parliament.
Here's how hydrogen could help the seamless adaptation of biomass and of the so far undependable solar and wind electricity into the dependable electricity grid:
GAsify biomass and coal to produce H2 to feed the H2-powered power-generating turbines. If high solar and wind electrical output is available, store the gasificed H2 for transportation use instead of burning it for electrical generation. Disperse the gasification plants to reduce the cost of H2 distribution.
Remember that the main hurdle of solar and wind electricity is their unreliability during windless or sunless days, thus forcing expensive backup fossil fuel powered plants.

Remember also that the main disadvantage of solar or wind electricity to hydrogen is the inefficiency of conversion of electricity to hydrogen at room temperature.
However, Hydrogen from gasification of coal or biomass to H2-Vehicle can rival or beat BEV in term of overall efficiency, while allowing unreliable electricity from solar and wind to be fed directly to the grid, thus further avoiding the loss from charging and discharging a BEV's battery.

The Europeans are smart and environmental conscious people. Please give them credit for that!

The reason behind is quite nu clear.
Bingo!!
It's not a question of whether generating H2 can be profitable . It can be already. The PR task is creating the need for huge amounts. Coal power plants can generate electricity at $0.025/kwh. There's a manure-load of capacity every night from 9pm to 6am.
Nuclear desperately needs an excuse to justify it's huge subsidizes.
H2 Economy is a money maker for Utilities. GM loves it cause it's always just around the corner, no need for silly things like CAFE.
It's a win-win for everyone, except the public.

Wintermane nice numbers you got on the $ price of hydrogen from electrolyse. I believe them because I found out it takes 50 kWh at 85% electrolyse efficiency to make 1 kilo of hydrogen. So the kWh cost is about 0,05*50 = $2,5 but we still need to factor in the cost of the electrolyse facility so $5 for a kilo of electrolyse hydrogen sound right. However, I would very much like if you could provide a web source for you numbers. Do you have a source?

Also note that as you say you can do 300 miles in a sedan sized car on 4 kilo of hydrogen. Now make it a plug in hydrogen to extend the life of the costly fuel cell and it will easily do 5*300 = 1500 miles on 4*5 =$20 worth of hydrogen. The cost of fuel and electricity is trivial compared to the cost of polluting fossil fuels. Still these plug in cars will sell at a premium of at least $10000 to begin with more likely $20000 extra.

Henrik,
Please kindly read my previous posting again. H2 raw cost under $1 USD when made from gasification of coal, or $2 when made from waste biomass. Adding profit and distribution cost and H2 still would cost under $2 when made from coal. Do not consider making H2 from electrolysis of water, because this is not an efficient nor cost effective process.

Electricity from wind or solar would be more efficiently be fed directly to the grid, while freeing hydrogen made from clean-coal gasification hydrogen power plants for storage for transportation use.

ICE optimized for H2 fuel can attain ~50% efficiency, and in conjuction with hybrid drive train, can compete in efficiency with FC at much lower cost.

If we want to greatly increase the chance that GW will kill of all of our children and future grand children plus most other species on the planet then coal gasification for H2 today is an effective way to pursue that goal. Sure nobody sane will want that and I am not saying it will happen for sure if we did it. I am saying that scenario is not worth risking for any saved money no matter how small the probability. Carbon sequestration is science fiction. I don’t believe it. It is a media plot by greedy selfish people to fool the masses to believe that there is a future for fossils. H2 from biomass low temperature gasification is excellent for a lot of applications. However, it is a fact that of the already massive global market for H2 (45 million tons per year, or $90 billion at $2) only 5% is transported any distance the rest is consumed where it is produced. Hydrogen is very dangerous and expensive to transport. Perfect for terrorists to use a liquid h2 tanker for mass destruction and accidents will increase to very high and unacceptable levels if hydrogen it distributed in populated areas. Therefore, onsite small scale electrolyse of H2 is a more expensive but far safer solution. Price is not an issue for hydrogen car transportation anyway when you can go 1500 miles in a plug in car on 4kilo*$5 = $20 worth of hydrogen from electrolyse made perhaps from a unit inside your car when it is parked and plugged in. So Roger please note also that 80% of the driven miles in a plug in fuel cell car is done on grid electricity anyway (can’t be more efficient). You may be right that a low tech solution with H2 using an ICE is a more economic idea at least in the short run but then again we do not have any hydrogen infrastructure yet and by the time we get it fuel cells for cars can likely be made for 4k. Plus the fuel sell is silent making it a better car.

Please read “media lobbying” in the above and forget what I used “media plot”. It sounds as if I believe in conspiracies. I don’t. But lobbying for greed and self-interest is a fact of modern societies and it may even be for the common good as well (say the wind power lobby) but it often is not such as the fossil fuel lobby.

Unless what I was told is wrong h2 stores about 36kwh of energy per kilo.. That means that 100% eff h2 gen will cost 36kwh to make a kilo.. At 75% it thus costs 48 kwh and at 60 it costs 60 kwh. And at 85 it only costs about 43 or so.. And we currently have 60-85% eff h2 generators with odd;y enough one of the cheaper per kilo per day units being that 85% one...

Now coal right this second is used to make h2 at 70 cents a kilo and ng costs well less then 2 bucks per.

BUT they have to add in the cost ofco2 sequestering on coal.. still its cheap even then.

As for where I get my numbers... right here and worldchanging and a few sundry sites.. I rarely forget things I read or hear but I do forget WHERE I find them.. so I cant be sure.

Oh and remember most of the h2 fuel cell cars designed lately ARE plug ins with vatious ev ranges.

Also remember by the time the cars hit the road for real the fuel cell likely will have greatly improved AND will be smallee.. We are talking maybe 350-400 mile ranges on 4 kilos by market time.

We may well see 2020 fc sedans going 130 miles per kilo... with each kilo costing sat 4-5 bucks at the pump.